Tag Archives: Review

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Book Review) – Stieg Larsson

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is the first book in The Millenium Trilogy by late Swedish author Stieg Larson.

Mikael Blomkvist is a man of many things but liar isn’t one of them. He wasn’t exactly being framed. His predicament was totally his fault but he should have known better. Sitting in court, receiving a three month sentence for libel against a Swedish business giant, he thought he had hit rock-bottom both financially and career-wise.

Soon after, Mikael receives the strangest job offer from the head of one of Sweden’s leading businesses, albeit being on its way down. Henrik Vagner, aged 82, wants Mikael to spend a year writing the history of the Vagner family in an attempt to solve the mystery of the disappearance of his niece: Harriet Vagner, some 40 years prior.

As they say, you can’t get a colder case than this. Harriet disappeared on Children’s day on the fictional Swedish island of Hedestad and even though an extensive search was made following her disappearance, a body was never found. So Vagner asks Mikael to attempt to find answers, as a way of closure for a man whose days are nearing their end.

But soon enough, Mikael needs help as he starts uncovering chilling new evidence that were overlooked in the original investigation. And that help comes in the form of Lisbeth Salander.

Lisbeth Salander is a 26 year old woman who has been under the auspices of the Swedish state since she was thirteen after being deemed unfit to look after herself. She’s 4’11”, flat-chested, has more piercings than places to put them and more tattoos than real skin. One of those tattoos is a dragon on her left shoulder blade.

Lisbeth also happens to be a world class computer hacker, able to go into any program or computer known to man and make it look as easy as counting from one to ten. She’s also excellent at investigating people and coming up with extensive reports detailing things they never told anyone.

Together, Lisbeth and Mikael start unearthing detail after detail about a chilling series of murders with a biblical element, all taking place in scattered parts around Sweden, in relation with the Vagner corporation. Who could the killer be? And how does Harriet fit in all of this? these are some of the questions they will try to answer in the book, even if their lives depend on it.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a top-notch thriller. It doesn’t have any dull moments and it engages you with the complexity of its characters. You get immersed in the detail that Stieg Larson provides in his description of the inner workings of Salander’s mind, who happens to have some form of asperger syndrome, or Blomkvist’s sense of guilt after his sentence, which nearly got his magazine “Millenium” to go under.

The author writes down many of the main characters’ thoughts, in italics, throughout the book. These thoughts, along with the impeccable dialogue in which they are immersed, serve as a backdrop that enriches the story and breathes new life into it. Sure, many authors have used thoughts in italics in their texts before but those thoughts have never been as important to the development of the story as they were in “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.”

Larson doesn’t shy away from being explicit in the book as well. There are scenes which are depicted with exquisite detail that they will shake you. The book’s original Swedish title was, after all, Män som hatar kvinnor (Men Who Hate Women), which means the book has many physical, mental and sexual abuse scenes. They are depicted to the letter.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a must read to anyone who enjoys an immersing novel to entertain their days (and nights). It is a book that you won’t be able to let down. It is a serious page turner that is more a character study of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist than a cynical approach by the author to his country, Sweden. It is a book where little is at is seems. But one thing is most definitely clear: you do not want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.

Sparks Fly (Single Review) – Taylor Swift


Taylor Swift just announced Sparks Fly as the upcoming single off her 3x platinum album: Speak Now.

The song, which has existed for a few years now, was given a slight makeover and included, due to overwhelming fan demand, on Taylor’s newest album: Speak Now.

The song opens: “the way you move is a full on rainstorm and I’m a house of cards…”, a line that I think is lyrical gold. It also sets the bar very high for the song to have such a line open it, add to that the very catchy music to which this line goes.

Taylor then proceeds: “you’re the kinda reckless that should send me running but I kinda know that I won’t get far… and you stood there in front of me, close enough to touch, close enough to hope you couldn’t see what I was thinking of.”

Sparks Fly is a song about falling for someone you shouldn’t fall for: be it someone older, someone younger… but at the same time, you can’t but be mesmerized by that person.

“Drop everything now, meet me in the pouring rain, kiss me on the sidewalk, take away the pain. Cause I see sparks fly whenever you smile. Get me with those green eyes, baby as the lights go down. Give me something that’ll haunt me when you’re not around” Taylor sings on the chorus. And the chorus is very heartfelt and raw. You feel on it the helplessness of Taylor as she tries to get away but she’s too tangled by him.

“My mind forgets to remind me you’re a bad idea”, she sings on the second verse, on which lies most of the change from the original version of Sparks Fly, which was sung live at a concert a few years back. She declares: “I’m on my guard with the rest of the world but with you, I know it’s no good. And I could wait patiently but I really wish you would drop everything now, meet me in the pouring rain…”

And then comes the song’s bridge. Up to this point, Sparks Fly could have easily been on Taylor’s previous albums. It has the rhythm, the catchy tune and the lyrics that would have definitely worked with the theme adopted by Taylor for her previous album Fearless. But then she reworked the bridge to make it sound like this:

I run my fingers through your hair
And watch the lights go wild
Just keep on keepin’ your eyes on me
It’s just wrong enough to make it feel right
And lead me up the staircase
Won’t you whisper soft and slow
I’m captivated by you baby
Like a firework show

And this is where the song rises. Some might think these lyrics are corny but think about it this way. If Sparks Fly plays out in real life with these lyrics in the bridge, you know what will happen after being led up the staircase. It’s that simple. This is a theme that Taylor wouldn’t have tackled on her previous album.

Ultimately, Sparks Fly will be the song off Speak Now that will be Taylor’s smash hit on the charts, possibly recreating the monster success of “You Belong With Me” and “Love Story“. Why so? because it manages to merge together two key elements: the authentic Taylor sound that she had with Fearless, along with the maturity that is present throughout Speak Now. It is definitely not the best song on the album on which it is found but for its purpose of giving Taylor a sure radio hit, Sparks Fly will excel. After all, this is a song that sustained years of being put on a shelve and that is a testament on its power. Don’t be surprised if sparks fly when this comes on the radio.

Listen to Sparks Fly here:

Rango – Movie Review


Rango starts when a pet chameleon (Johnny Depp), after trying to orchestrate a very fancy looking play with a plastic fish and beheaded doll, gets stranded in the Mojave desert after he falls from his owner’s car. There, the chameleon (who is still nameless at this point), dazed and confused narrowly avoids getting killed by a hawk. Then, the chameleon meets an iguana named Beans (Isla Fisher) who takes him to the desert town: Dirt.

In Dirt, the chameleon finds the opportunity to be whatever he wants. He chooses to be Rango, a westerner marksman, and moments later, when the hawk comes back to terrorize the town, Rango kills him by firing a lucky shot that gets an empty water tower to squash the hawk.

However, soon after their arrival to Dirt, Beans discovers that the water reserves are dangerously low, which prompts her to ask Rango, who gets appointed sheriff, to investigate the matter. Rango undertakes her request and as the movie progresses, you find out the water issue is more complex and twisted than any of them first imagined: control the water and you control everything.

Rango is not your typical animated movie. It is definitely not something for the kids. After all, how many times do you hear the words “prostate exam”, “I’m ready to mate” and so on in a cartoon? The movie is a celebration of everything that is Western. There’s even a Clint Eastwood sort of appearance, just to top it all.

Johnny Depp is brilliant as the voice of Rango. The chameleon who embodies many personalities, depending on how he sees fit, needed an actor as versatile to give him life. And Johnny Depp does not fail at this. He plays well on screen with Isla Fisher, who has come a long way from being a shopaholic, with her impeccable western accent.

Director Gore Verbinski, known mostly for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, strings this movie together as an overall tribute to the western genre. There are hints from many famous western movies in Rango that anyone who’s a fan of the genre would pick up. Add to that the brilliant work of Hans Zimmer on the score, as well as screenwriter John Logan, and the movie becomes a very strong movie overall.

Rango is not a very pretty movie in the sense that animated movies are almost always aimed at providing audiences with a cute looking hero/heroin before anything else. Here, even the good people are cringe-worthy when it comes to the cuteness element, which goes to show how much the creators of Rango did not waver in them wanting to make an animated movie that’s not addressed to a particular audience, but one that fit their vision. Rango is a movie with many firsts. This the animators’ first animated movie and the director’s first animated movie as well. But you don’t feel that it’s a movie of firsts when you watch it because everyone involved gives it their all to make it as good as it could be. And yes, it is good.

Monster (Single Review) – Paramore

Monster is the new single by Paramore that will serve as the lead single of their upcoming album as well as the single off the new Transformers movie.

It is also the first single by Paramore since the group’s founders, the Faro brothers, decided to leave them due to “irreconcilable differences” with lead vocalist Hayley Williams. And the song is all about that.

The Faro brothers have had many statements issued regarding their departures, portraying Hayley Williams as a person who made the whole band revolve around her and turning their sound into a music label product. Monster is Hayley’s way of firing back. And she is firing with an automatic.

The song opens up: “You were my conscience, so solid, now you’re like water” to set the tone for the dying relationship before she ends the first verse with “I let my heart go…. But I’ll get a new one and come back for the hope that you’ve stolen.”

And then she starts singing the chorus:

“I’ll stop the whole world, I’ll stop the whole world
From turning into a monster and eating us alive
Don’t you ever wonder how we survive?
Well now that you’re gone, the world is ours”

And in case the previous lyrics were not enough, the second verse is only there to let the doubters know that this, in fact, is Hayley’s manifesto against the Faro brothers: “I’m only human, I’ve got a skeleton in me
but I’m not the villain, despite what you’re always preaching.”

I have found the song to be absolutely brilliant. You can’t even discern the fact that Paramore are two members less when you hear the scorching electric guitar on some parts of the song. And since the lyrics are so personal to her, Hayley’s delivery is impeccable. I have always been a fan of her vocals and this song only fortifies that. Monster is the song that you’d expect from Paramore as their lead single: guitars and drums and the rock style they’ve come to be known for. Some people are saying that their isn’t much innovation in their sound with their song. And I agree. But the question is: does an artist constantly need to innovate to stay relevant? Absolutely not. That doesn’t mean that an artist should rehash the same stuff that made him/her popular in the first place, but that doesn’t mean that whenever an artist becomes popular, he’s not allowed to follow the formula of what caused that popularity in the first place. Besides, it’s not like Paramore have singles constantly being overplayed on radio for them to establish a “sound” that becomes glued to listeners’ ear. Yes, I’m looking at you Ke$ha.

Paramore is a band that will have the stigma of being a “teenager” punk-rock band, constantly stuck with it. Why? because that is how it started. Monster is the first step in the direction of them going the more “adult” route because the topic being discussed, while applicable to teenagers and their lives (the song is about love and loss after all), is quite mature. And not only is Monster a great leading single with meaning, but it’s also insanely catchy. Try not to get the line “I’ll stop the whole world from turning into a monster” stuck in your head and then get back to me.

All in all, I absolutely love this. Call it guilty pleasure or simply music that I like, but Paramore is one of those rare bands whose songs just click for me, without being grating on my nerves. And Monster is a good, very good song.

Listen up:

This Is Country Music (Album Review) – Brad Paisley

Brad Paisley is not one of the leading figures in country music for no reason. He has always pushed the envelope of the genre with his music, introducing issues that were usually not discussed in song and making the umbrella of the country music genre even wider, engulfing more themes.

On his last album, “American Saturday Night”, Brad dealt with social issues we all live through but don’t really consider, such as looking at the younger generation and seeing all of the advances they have and we lacked (the song in question is Welcome To The Future).

He doesn’t stray far from that in This Is Country Music, an album that starts with the song of the same name where Brad says country music is the only genre where the word “cancer” is mentioned in a song and goes on into a segue of country music classics (Stand By Your Man, Take Me Home Country Roads, etc…)

On Old Alabama, Brad tells the story of a date with a girl whose idea of a perfect date is not one that involves high-end meals but a simple drive around in a truck listening to Alabama. It’s the song for everyone whose woman is not a high-maintenance gal. The country band Alabama is featured on it.

A Man Don’t Have To Die is a haunting song about the hardships in life and is probably one of the album’s highlights. It starts by describing a priest telling people that hell exists. Brad then comes in to say that we don’t need the priest to tell us this because some of us go things in life that make our life a living hell: when you get fired, when you find out you’re all alone in life, etc… “you don’t have to die to go to hell”.

Camouflage is a smart song, which would have fitted nicely with Brad’s previous album, saying how camouflage is Brad’s favorite color: makes you fit in where you can’t, makes you irresistible for a redneck girl…

And the comes Remind Me, the duet with Carrie Underwood. To say this song is brilliant would be an understatement. It is about a couple rekindling their romance and it is just perfect. You’d expect a song with such a theme to be sadder somehow but it confuses you by being a mid-tempo power ballad. The lyrics are top notch, even the repetition of the words “remind me” don’t come off as grating because it blends very well in the overall body of work. Brad holds his own next to the soaring vocals of Carrie Underwood, making for another – if not the – album highlight. You can check out my full Remind Me review here.

On Working On A Tan, Brad describes a girl soaking in the sun, doing exactly what the title says. Meanwhile, the boys are at the gym working out, wanting to go to the beach just because she’s there working on a tan, with everyone’s tongues hanging out but she doesn’t give a damn.

Love Her Like She’s Leaving is another ballad, featuring Don Henley, that starts with a couple’s wedding and how he’ll never forget how the bride’s uncle told him to “love her like she’s leaving, like it’s all gonna end if he don’t”. Definitely another album highlight, an absolutely brilliant song.

One Of Those Lives is the story of one of those days where you think everything’s going wrong: you rush out and there’s traffic, get chewed by the boss. And then you receive a phone call that your friend’s little boy had a cancer relapse only realizing that while you had one of those days, the boy has had one of those lives. If you don’t feel compassion when you hear this, you need to listen again. An amazing ballad.

On Toothbrush, Brad paints a family portrait that all starts with a toothbrush: it all starts with a toothbursh, a splash of after-shave before leaving for a first date… long kiss goodnight… ultimately leading to a marriage and some kids. Brad sings that everything starts as a little thing, needing room to grow. It all starts with a toothbrush.

Be The Lake is the dirty joke song Brad loves to have on every album. On his previous album, American Saturday Night, it was Water (Daytona beach on spring break/ Eighteen girls up on stage/ White t-shirts about to sprayed with water). On Be The Lake, the girl is swimming and Brad is wishing he could be the lake that she’s swimming in.

Eastwood is a song featuring the directing/acting legend Clint Eastwood. It starts off by Brad’s little boy asking: “hey, what about western?” to which Clint replies: “You want western? Well, this is western!” before pure western music, taken out of a cowboy movie, starts playing. Eastwood is mostly an instrumental track, with Brad, a very strong guitarist, bringing it while Clint Eastwood whistles in the background. It ends by Brad telling Clint: “good job,” the latter replying: “thanks Brad, now I’ve tried everything.”

New Favorite Memory is about a couple going through many scenarios, each time ending with the man telling the woman to stop so he could let it sink it, his favorite memory of her. It is a ballad about a tender love that holds nothing back.

Don’t Drink The Water is a conversation between two guys (the other one being country star Blake Shelton) about going down to Mexico for a vacation. They have some sweet ladies that are more than glad to meet you – but don’t dare to drink the water there.

I Do Now is a song about a man regretting the mistakes he did with his wife. How he’d give anything to go back in time somehow so he wouldn’t break her heart and the vows he made to her and tell her, right in the moment he said I do, that “I do now”.

The last song on the album, Life’s Railway To Heaven, is more on the Christian-side of things where Brad, along with Sheryl Crow and Carl Jackson sing, to a prominent banjo and fiddle background, “blessed the savior that will guide us till we reach that blissful shore, where the angels wait to join us in God’s praise forevermore”.

Brad Paisley, one of country music’s superstars, has the bar set very high for him whenever he wants to release anything. And he hits the bar and more with his eighth album, This Is Country Music. The album serves as a book, each song being a chapter. It’s very cohesive and entertaining. Some said the album could do without a few tracks. But when you look at the collective work that this album presents, you can’t but feel that is is complete as is. How so? When you listen to the album’s first single, many themes are brought up, saying that country music tackles all of these issues. The album serves as a way to tackle the issues that the first single presents. Many have said it is not Brad’s best single – and I agree. But it serves its purpose of being introductory to an album that shows what is country music.

What’s great about this album is that it is real without being pretentious. It doesn’t set out to be the best album ever made, even for Brad’s fans, and it doesn’t include songs that you need to over-analyze to understand. It’s an album about life, freedom, marriage, love, as simple as it may be.

Brad’s fans will love this. Those who are apprehensive will find themselves tapping their toes to some of the songs but everyone will find a song to which they can relate because, at the end of the day, this is country music and it tells the story of your life.